Drivers nightmare journeys on the A338

These are just some of the responses we received.

• “Some delays”, “alternative routes” - do they think we are stupid? We could cope with some delays and use alternative routes if either of these concepts were remotely relevant to the devastating disruption these works are causing. It is simply not acceptable to cause this amount of disruption, for businesses or for private individuals.
• These roadworks are now spilling back to Stony Lane Christchurch. It took me 45 minutes to get from Burton to Winton on Tuesday evening to see my son. I also have to drive to the Heart Club on Tuesday mornings. These people at Bournemouth town hall should be sacked as they are grossly incompetent and could not organise a fairies tea party.
• 40mph? I never got above 12mph. I left Ringwood at 16.05 and reached Cooper Dean roundabout at 17.12 and that was not even rush hour. I work in Ringwood and am a single parent and spend three nights a week taking my son to various activities after school. Just exactly what can I do. I'm not in a position to start going via Christchurch or Ferndown. Extra fuel I can ill afford.
• Please can I add to my comments that Gary Powell's reply is very patronising. Yes we know there are road works. Get real and stop sending out one liners. DO SOMETHING. This is going to cost lives. This is a hospital route. He might start to understand it was NOT like this when the A338 Wessex Way had road works before.
• This is absolutely ridiculous. I had a meeting in Ringwood which ended at 10.40 am,  it would normally take me around 20 minutes to get to Castlepoint afterwards, it took me 80 minutes. I had my foster child in the car with me who suffers with anxiety and had I had no idea beforehand about these roadworks, what an inconvenience.
• I work in Cranborne as a support worker. I finished work at 8am and got home 10:40am. I am absolutely missed my kids first day in school, my partner had to spend over £10 on a taxi from our house to school, and if this is over nine months, it's going to cost over £1,800 for the nine months to get my kid to school on time as buses from Castlepoint to Boscombe and traffic means my son will be late for school for the nine months, ridiculous. Tell me reasonably how to do this in a more efficient way, there is none. What I will need to do is pick up an extra 32 hours a month to make up the cost to get my boy to school.
• It took me 1 hour 45 minutes to get home tonight from work in Verwood. Ridiculous! Our boss is now considering changing our work hours, and us getting less of a lunch break. We shouldn't have to make this sacrifice because of poor planning.
• Not only the Spur Road. We live in Parley. Traffic still queuing past The Horns to get through the lights at Parley Cross at 7.00 tonight! Is this it for 9 months?
• Three hours to do the final nine miles of my 38 mile commute home, every day for 9 months? There goes any sort of life for me! Being a commuter is bad enough. Road works this evening are just as bad as this morning. I work in Chandlers Ford and live in Christchurch.  This final 9 miles stretch of my journey has quadrupled the total length of my overall daily journey. I’ve purposely worked a 12 hours day today - stayed an un paid additional 3 hours at work just to miss the ‘rush’ to sit in it for hours for the tiny few miles of my journey. This will impact me everyday of my life for 9 months, 3 days a week I have to be back in Bmth by 6.15pm if this continues I’ll have to leave my office at 2.30 just to make it! Can’t see my employer agreeing to that. It’s impacts on our roads like this that make people like me make life changing decisions, like selling up leaving our beautiful town of Bmth to live closer to work - or leaving my current employer to work somewhere with less money less prospects because it’s ‘down the road’. It’s unacceptable and not good enough for our town. 9 months of this over the winter period, frankly, will be hell. The public should demand this work is carried out overnight only with no impact on commuters within day light hours. How dare the council suggest they’ve ‘given us notice’ and for us to find an ‘alternative route’ the whole point is when it comes to the spur road we have no bloody choice! One country lane as the alternative. Sort it out Bmth council - you are making people’s lives miserable.
• To say people should allow extra time southbound is simply not a good enough response and the council must take action to minimise the kind of delays we have seen today. The infrastructure simply does not exist and alternative routes are not able to cope with the level of traffic that closing one lane of the carriageway creates.
• I was stuck in traffic this evening. I saw the road gridlocked this morning from Bournemouth all the way to Ringwood whilst travelling to work in Romsey. As a result I chose to leave work a little early and come back via Sopley and. Christchurch to try and miss it. I have to be home to collect my daughter from the childminder at 6. As a single mum there’s no one else to do it. It seems all roads were gridlocked though, and for a time I even followed a broken down van who was able to keep up with the ridiculous traffic despite being pushed!!! I have recently returned back to work after 11 years self employment largely working from home and I fear if this traffic does go on as is being stated, until June, i simply won’t be able to keep working in the job I’ve changed my career direction for! I’m very concerned.